The Couple at No. 9(77)

‘Oh, Daphne.’

‘I went to prison – of course. Well, it wasn’t an adult prison. A secure unit. I was rehabilitated, thankfully by well-adjusted kind adults who taught me the rights and wrongs my own parents never did.’ She pulled the quilt up to her chin and shivered as though remembering.

‘It must have been awful,’ I said.

‘It was less awful than the house I was brought up in.’

I couldn’t even imagine. My own upbringing had been lovely, the only child to two kind, attentive parents.

I let Daphne talk that night about her childhood, her life. How she was given a new identity as Sheila Watts, how she’d had to steal the identity of Daphne Hartall from her friend Alan when she realized that the journalist, Neil Lewisham, had discovered who she really was.

I didn’t tell her my story. Not then. I’d kept it a secret for so many years that to speak it out loud would have felt too much.

And I didn’t want things to change between us. Daphne might feel uncomfortable if she knew my history. I continued to let her believe I was a widow, that my ‘husband’ had died before you were born.

I hadn’t even told her about my last girlfriend.

Audrey and I were together a long time. We didn’t hide our sexuality: there was nobody to hide it from. My parents were dead and she came from a very liberal, cerebral family. Her parents were academics. Even in the 1970s, with free love and the sexual revolution, there were still those who judged us, who thought nothing of telling us of their disapproval.

But when I turned thirty I wanted the one thing Audrey couldn’t give me.

A baby.

And that was when I met Victor.





42


Lorna





‘We need to ring DS Barnes,’ says Lorna, first thing the next morning.

‘Should we disturb them on a Sunday?’ asks Saffy from the sofa, wrapped in her velour dressing gown the colour of aubergines, looking a little peaky. Tom is still in bed. They were up late last night, talking for hours after Theo and Jen had left. Lorna was wide awake at 7 a.m. and has already been on the phone to her boss back in Spain to tell him she’ll need more time off. He was surprisingly understanding.

‘Absolutely. This is important,’ she replies firmly.

Although it’s still early, the sun is already streaming through the windows and it cheers Lorna up. She needs it after last night’s revelations. The only good thing to come out of it is that she might have a half-brother. But the rest – Victor Carmichael being her dad, and the despicable things he might have done. What kind of man would send a thug like Glen Davies to frighten her? His own daughter? The murdering kind, she thinks. Could he have had something to do with the bodies in the garden? Is he now panicking because the past is catching up with him and worried he’ll be found out all these years later? What ‘evidence’ does her mother have against him?

And then there’s Saffy. She glances at her daughter, who is staring into the middle distance, biting at her thumbnail. All the resentment Saffy has been harbouring, things Lorna wasn’t even aware of. Has she been a bad mother? Her daughter’s words still feel like a wound to her heart. She doesn’t know how to make any of it better.

Lorna picks up her mobile from the coffee-table. ‘Would you mind putting the kettle on, honey? And I’ll phone DS Barnes.’ She’s already had two cups of coffee this morning and feels jittery. Saffy comes to reluctantly, gets off the sofa and heads into the kitchen. She can hear her clattering about opening cupboards and plonking mugs onto the worktop.

DS Barnes answers straight away. She launches into an account of last night’s events, talking so fast he has to ask her to repeat herself.

‘Wow, good work,’ he says, when she’s finished. ‘We’ll send someone to talk to Victor Carmichael today.’

‘He lives in Yorkshire …’

‘That’s not a problem. And now we know who Glen Davies works for it shouldn’t be hard to find him either,’ he says. Lorna feels a wave of relief. She’s been on constant alert since he grabbed her off the street. She hopes they can lock him up. ‘As you can guess,’ he adds, ‘the card he gave you wasn’t legitimate. The number is probably a burner phone and it rang out when one of my officers called. We can organize a DNA test. When is Theo returning home?’

‘He’s staying until tomorrow. I’ve got his number – I’m sure he won’t mind me giving it to you.’

‘Great. I’ll keep you updated.’

He ends the call and Lorna joins Saffy in the kitchen. She’s staring into the fridge. ‘We’ve run out of milk. Again. How are we getting through so much?’ she wails.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Lorna, remembering. ‘I used the rest of it for my coffee this morning. Why don’t you go back to bed? I’ll pop to the village and get some more.’ She rubs her daughter’s arm, the velour soft like a teddy bear under her fingers. ‘I’ll make something nice for dinner tonight. Something nutritious.’

‘Thanks, Mum. Would you mind taking Snowy with you?’

Lorna agrees and watches as Saffy pads down the hall and up the stairs, like she’s got the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Lorna is coming out of the corner shop clutching a plastic bag when she bumps into Melissa.